


Worries in the Night

by Buffintruder



Series: fake dating au [1]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Aromantic, Fake Marriage, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Gen, Only One Bed, aro ling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-29
Updated: 2019-11-29
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:40:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21607696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Buffintruder/pseuds/Buffintruder
Summary: When Ling first suggested fake dating as a way of getting free food, he hadn't expected it to end up like this
Relationships: Greed & Ling Yao
Series: fake dating au [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1557304
Comments: 8
Kudos: 50





	Worries in the Night

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Magpie, the godperson of this fic, for inspiring me. I blame the existence of this fic entirely on you.

It had all started out so simple, Ling thought regretfully. Just a tiny scheme, intended more for fun and games than anything else. Now here he was a continent away from home in his childhood bed in Beijing with his fake husband, questioning every decision he had ever made that got him to this point. 

Somehow, even with his return to the place he had tried so hard to get away from, the part of this whole situation that was tripping him up the most at this moment was the ‘in bed with his sort of fake technically real husband’ thing. Nobody had ever said he was good at getting his priorities in order. 

It hadn’t been so bad earlier that night, when he had been too jetlagged to think about any of it properly. He had pushed himself as close to the wall as possible and fallen asleep too quickly to bother worrying about it. However, at some point in his sleep, he must have moved. Now his head had somehow moved onto Greed’s shoulder, their noses almost brushing. He could faintly hear Greed’s pulse beneath his ear, slower than Ling’s own rapid heartbeat.

“One of Ed’s coworkers is getting married,” Ling had said almost two years ago when everything was fine and splendid and not a disaster. “I got invited, wanna be my plus one? I barely know anyone there other than Ed, and there’ll be free food and drinks.”

“Sure,” Greed said from the other side of the sofa, barely looking up from his phone. “Is it the kid’s boss and that really competent blond lady?”

“Nah, it’s Havoc and his girlfriend,” Ling said. “Though I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if we heard an announcement from them in a few months from now.”

“Everyone’s getting married these days,” Greed muttered. “Do you know how many times my bar’s been asked to cater someone’s wedding in the past few months? I did a favor for _one person_ , now suddenly everyone wants a part in it. Every other week, I’m off serving drinks at some fancy venue.”

Ling opened his eyes suddenly and gave a little dramatic gasp. “Greed! Do you get free food and stuff at those weddings?”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I’ll turn down the opportunity to get more free shit at Hav—”

“You gotta bring me along!” Ling had said, completely unaware of all the suffering he was about to bring upon his future self. “You know how passionate my love of free food is!”

“You want to crash all the weddings I work at?” Greed asked dubiously. “I’m not going to hire you just so you can get free food.”

“No, no, no, it wouldn’t be crashing if I’m invited,” Ling insisted, leaning forward to clutch Greed’s arm. “Please? It’s a _wedding_. If you just say you want to bring along your true love or whatever, they couldn’t possibly refuse then, could they?”

Greed laughed. “True love, huh?”

“It works in movies and fanfiction,” Ling said, pouting just enough to appear put out without being so exaggerated that Greed would laugh at him.

“Sure, okay, I’ll do that,” Greed said. “But if it works, then this will be a two sided fake-dating-for-food relationship, alright? You take me anywhere you get invited to, plus access to your Netflix account.”

“If you give me your Hulu account in return,” Ling said. “Also I heard two people can get Spotify subscriptions for a lot cheaper if they’re in a relationship? There’s lots of stuff like that, so I vote we bring up any stuff like that we hear about and take advantage of the system.”

“Deal,” Greed said, a broad grin stretching across his face, and that had been the beginning of the end. 

Ling had foolishly assumed that because all the people he was actually close to knew the relationship was fake, it would merely be a fun way to spend time with his friend and get a lot of free stuff without much consequence. And for a time, that was all it was, with only the occasional mishap, like the one that got them legally married. Ling liked to think that it would have remained low key too, if his parents hadn’t somehow caught word of the marriage. Everything had spiralled sharply downwards after that.

So now Ling was back home, sharing a bed with Greed who he was pretending to be in love with, wondering how his life had become a rom-com. 

He had been _so careful_ to avoid the tropes. Outside of weddings and other similar events, he had come clean about his real relationship with Greed to anyone who pressed, careful not to let his lie spiral out of control, to not let people build up expectations that he would be forced to uphold.

In stories, the biggest pitfall of fake dating was the relationship getting too real, but since he was aromantic, he had been confident that falling in love would not be an issue he would ever have to face. Even so, he hadn’t been overly romantic with Greed, no kisses or excessive hand holding or anything else, letting their easy banter and casual physical affection use people’s expectations to fill in the rest. It had been the bare minimum of fake dating.

But Ling had forgotten that just because he didn’t have feelings for someone didn’t necessarily mean they didn’t have any for him. And right now, Greed’s face was so close that Ling could feel his breath, and Greed’s hand was warm on top of his shoulder, holding them together. Greed’s breathing was slightly more irregular and faster than it had been when Ling had first woken up; he was probably awake as well. It was the ideal set up for a first kiss scene in every movie ever, and Ling found himself terrified.

He hadn’t considered the idea of Greed having romantic feelings for him much before, but now he was running through all his memories to see if there was anything in there that would point to that being the case. 

They were close, having long since crossed the line from casual friendship to something more comfortable and suited to them. They spent lots of time together, and Greed touched him a lot, but Ling hadn’t given it much thought because Greed was generally a tactile person. Greed hadn’t dated anyone in the time that Ling had known him, but Ling was hardly one to question that, so he hadn’t, except now a small part of him couldn’t help but ask if that was because Greed had been pining after him this whole time.

Ling couldn’t deal with the responsibility of holding the weight of something as fragile and vulnerable as someone else’s love. There were times he barely knew what to do with the platonic kind that he caught flashes of from his friends, and at least he had returned those feelings. The last thing he wanted was to be responsible for breaking his best friend’s heart.

But this only applied if Greed actually _did_ have romantic feelings for him, Ling reminded himself. He didn’t know anything for sure, and as long as he didn’t know, he wouldn’t have to hurt someone he had grown to care for deeply. Of course, as long as he didn’t know, anything was possible, and all those possibilities weighed down on his chest, squeezing his insides into knots.

Now that Ling was considering the idea that Greed might have feelings for him that he couldn’t reciprocate, he knew it would not stop bothering him until he found out the truth, and the last thing they needed was something to come in between them when the situation was already so tense.

He had to be an adult about this, Ling thought. If he wanted to know, he just had to ask. The worst that could happen was that Greed would laugh at him for even thinking that he was attractive enough for anyone to want to date him. The worst that could happen was that Greed would say it was true and Ling would have to say he didn’t feel the same. But even if that did happen, at least it would be out in the open. At least he could do something about it instead of lying here in the dark worrying about everything that might possibly be.

All Ling had to do was open his mouth and ask. Ling would feel really silly about this if Greed wasn’t actually awake, but that would be the most likely outcome of his question anyway, no matter how it turned out.

Ling opened his eyes and took a breath. “Look, I’m sorry to ask this, but I need to make sure you do not have a crush on me.”

Greed opened one eye, just barely visible in the moonlight, and snorted. “Of course not, dumbass.”

“Oh,” Ling said, the first tendrils of relief sinking their way past the worry enveloping him. He was glad, obviously, though the answer felt a bit anticlimactic, and he felt embarrassed for bringing it up.

“Now, can we go back to sleep?” Greed’s voice was gentle, and his hand slid down from Ling’s shoulder to his back, pulling them closer together. Ling wasn’t entirely sure how to interpret that except maybe as a reassurance that the lack of romance between them was not something that would drive them apart, that it would only bring them closer. Or maybe just that Greed enjoyed cuddling him and wanted more of it. Either way, Ling wasn’t complaining.

“I wasn’t keeping you up,” Ling muttered.

“With how tense you were? You totally were. Now hush, I want to sleep.”

With the darkness hiding his smile, Ling snuggled closer and quickly drifted off.

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t particularly want to write out the entire story of Greed and Ling fake dating and visiting his family, so this will likely not be expanded on in full. However, I do have further ideas for fake dating shenanigans that I will hopefully post at some point, which is why I’ve made this into a series.  
> Next up: the story of how Ling and Greed got married.


End file.
